After an extended break from exercise, I dragged myself to the apartment gym yesterday and had a pretty dismal experience although I got through it. I probably did most of the things you shouldn’t do when you go to the gym.
1. Make sure that you are not well rested. I’ve been sleeping around 2am every night for over a week because I started a new series about Genghis by Conn Iggulden and I’m already on book 3 of 5. Also, I waited until my wife and daughter were sleeping before heading out, which was already 10:30pm. I can’t even count how many times I yawned in the middle of lifting weights.
2. Eat a huge dinner and top it off by pigging out on durian before working out. I was burping through the entire workout and couldn’t push myself because I kept feeling like I was about to throw up.
3. Don’t warm up. I usually do a 10-minute jog on the treadmill before doing weights just to get the blood flowing and the sweat starting – I’m a strong believer that when your muscles are loose and warm, you are less likely to get injured. But yesterday I went straight to the weights before I lost my motivation to start.
4. Don’t wear proper gear to the gym. I decided to wear slippers and take a walk to the gym where I would only use it if it were empty. The gym had only one guy but he was in the room with the treadmills and stationary bike, and so I went to the weights section.
5. Take long breaks and watch TV between sets. Because of the nausea and lack of motivation, I took significant breaks between each exercise to gather up enough willpower to start the next one. This meant that my heart rate was not kept at a high level and my sweat only came out intermittently.
By the time I finished, it was past 11pm and by midnight, I was in bed after cooling down and showering…all ready to continue reading about Genghis.
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